POLYchromatic Application
Name/Nick: Elizabeth / Rizu
LJ name: raigekijin
Other characters played:
[Cirucci :: Bleach :: thunderwitch]
[Nemu :: Bleach :: sciencedaughter]
[Sui :: Double Arts :: cherryhoops]
[Ophelia :: Claymore :: therippling]
[Guilford :: Code Geass:: glastonknight]
[Havoc :: Darker than Black :: letslip]
[Tianzi :: Code Geass:: justasystem]
[e-mail]: DeiDei.Kun@gmail.com
[AIM / messenger]: steelandpride
[series]: Blood+
[character]: Charles Fei-Ong*
* Carl in the Blood+ manga and Carl in the anime are seperate characters, yes, but they do seem to be each others parallel. They share similar personality traits, motivations, and connections, as well as name, etc, so I'm going on assuming that Fei-Ong may very well be manga!Carl' last name as well, since the characters are essentially each other, just... different in each media, if that makes sense. Anime Carl info is here
[character history / background]:
Once upon a time, in 1917, there was a young boy, and this young boy was introduced to a young woman who wasn’t quite human. Diva, one of two Chiropteran Queen, and the one raised in her “natural” environment, unstable and violent. But Carl was only around twelve years old, and he could play with her, the more innocent kind of play, and so she had him drink of her blood through the mouth, and by doing so, turned him in to one of the Chevaliers. The band of brothers, fellow Chevaliers, over the years began to subsist of the eldest of them, Amshel, Carl himself, Solomon, Nathan, Grigori, James, and Martin. Of all of her Chevaliers, the men she has chosen as her special guard, those who are compelled to protect her at all costs, watch over her as she sleeps, she says that only Amshel and Carl were turned of her own want. The rest, she dismisses at one point, were only turned because Amshel insisted on it, not because of her own desires, which speaks of her regard for the lives she creates. Of her chevaliers, Martin is no longer living, and Grigori is not featured.
In 1972, during the Vietnam war, Carl was with Diva in a danger zone. The Vietnam war was a period of vast unrest for the Chiropteran race, with both Queens, Diva and Saya, eventually awake, and the ability to cloak their bloody activities in the carnage of wartime. In order to combat the army of Chiropterans that Diva had raised, the Red Shield organization, dedicated to Diva’s destruction, tried to force Saya’s awakening, as the queens spend thirty years asleep and one awake, and with her sleeping, they had no real chance against the Chiropterans. By forcefully injecting her Chevalier, Hagi’s, blood in to her, they did manage to awaken her, but she was blood crazed and not herself, going off on a bloody rampage, killing Chiropteran and innocent humans alike. Seeking out Diva, Carl protected his queen, and in the process of fighting the maddened Saya he lost his arm. While as a Chevalier he would normally have been able to reattach a limb, Saya’s blood is deadly to those of Diva’s blood, and he had to rip his limb from him before the infection spread and killed him.
Carl’s failure, his endangering of their Queen, and his loss to Saya earned him Amshel’s disdain. One of the goals of the Chevaliers included perfecting a way to artificially manufacture Chiropteran beasts, and in order to further this goal Amshel punished Carl by casting him out of the Chevalier ranks, going even so far as to remove his name from him, dictating that he would from now on only be known as Charles, and that he would be subject to all the experiments that their Cinq Flèches group needed to perform on an immortal Chevalier to perfect their D67 medicines that could turn normal humans in to Chiropterans.
And thus was Carl dead, and Charles born.
Over the years after that Charles’ life was one large experiment. Van Argiano, the top researcher at the Cinq Flèches pharmaceutical group, was made his caretaker, confidante, and only contact. Van fed Charles, accompanied him everywhere, bent to his every whim, and yet, was also the one who was performing the cruel, often painful, tests upon the former Chevalier. Because Charles could not die, experiments to see what may force him to approach true death were the norm. And yet, over the thirty some years after the Vietnam War, Charles grew as attached to his handler as his handler pretended to attach to him. Van was essentially his only companion throughout the years approaching the start of the main storyline of Blood+.
We first see Charles entering canon in the pursuit of two rogue Chiropterans from the D67 project. The American military stationed in Okinawa is initially supposed to control their capture, but when Saya, amnesiac and unaware of her past, becomes involved? Charles gets involved fast, mobilizing the US forces and offering Van Saya's lower half when he's done with her, since she's immortal, he assures him, it should still be serviceable. For Charles, everything has to be perfect, to recreate "his" Vietnam War in which Saya took his arm from him, and therefore everything he held dear: Diva, and the companionship of her other Chevaliers, not to mention freedom and life without constant torture thinly veiled as research. In the middle of a school play Charles makes his debut after she dispatches a Chiropteran, raining a vast amount of wounds on Saya in the need to make her awaken, to drink blood, and to become the Saya he fought thirty years past. He gets too carried away, however, and is taken off guard by Hagi, Saya's Chevalier, and they manage to escape him. But to set up for his next act he kidnaps Saya's little brother, fourteen year old Riku, and leaves Red Shields' doctor lying in a bed of blue roses, with his note to the still unawakened Saya carved on to her breasts.
Just as he wished, Saya and the Red Shield group follow him back to Vietnam, with only his blue roses, (Diva's favorite), as a clue. Charles would have stayed in a good mood, perhaps, if Solomon, one of Diva's other Chevaliers, had not paid a visit on Amshel's orders. For acting out of turn, and attacking Saya, playing his games, Solomon was instructed to "reign him in a little". He seems to pity Charles, at least, he acts as if he does, which only causes the former Chevalier to cut Solomon's hand from him when he accuses Charles of really doing all of this in the hopes of becoming a Chevalier again. For his insubordination, and to reign him in as instructed, Solomon cuts of Charles' remaining arm, and both of his legs, refusing to release him until he imparts his "advice".
Your Ophelia act is too good, Charles. I'm worried about you. I don't want you to end up drowned in a brook."
How kind, Laertes. But the blood loss of this encounter is what sets him up for a display of weakness when Riku wakes up. Charles cannot move from his seat, and was cursing God, cursing Solomon, when Riku opens his eyes to find him crying. Embarrassed to show weakness like this he tries to flee, but falls, and instead starts crying out for Van. But Van doesn't come. Still crying, Charles answers Riku's queries about whether he is okay by turning and asking him to save him, moving to drink his blood and restore his own strength.
When Riku wakes once again, he doesn't believe that Charles' hand, which he turned to Chiropteran form, was real. A naive boy, really, Riku is nothing like Charles, or like what Charles expected. He bosses Riku around, declaring him his servant until Saya arrives. Having never had another companion besides Van, Charles falls back on a side of himself that had not seen the light of day for many years. He grows remarkably close to Riku in their short time together. He admits his fear of moths to the other boy, (dirty insects disguised as butterflies!), reveals a passion for fine literature, and is shocked when Riku helps him tie the ribbon at his neck, something he is unable to do with only one arm. When he asks, "You aren't afraid of me?", "Of course not", is his answer.
Things come to a head, however, when Solomon gives Van a present from Amshel to Charles, and instructs him to use Diva's song to mobilize the D67 infected humans in the area, turning them to Chiropterans in order to fight Saya and the Red Shield group. During this talk Solomon asks Van why he wears glasses cracked by one of Charles' fits. He is almost moved when Van says that, while he has another pair of glasses, he makes sure always to wear the ones that Charles cracked around Charles, presumably in order to fill him with guilt, and remind him. When confronted by Charles about following Solomon's orders, Van only starts to say that it was Solomon before Charles becomes increasingly unstable and manic, shouting that Van doesn't listen to the Chevaliers, he listens to him, and he wouldn't let them have him, never, never, never. In a fear of the most twisted desperation and devotion, the immortal rips his own heart from his chest and presents it to Van, stating that he knows what he's after, eternal life secrets, and his blood had them, his, not theirs, and he would give them to him, give Van anything.
Just don't betray me.
Issues much. While Riku goes in to a state of shock, Van calmly removes Charles' heart from his hand and presses it back in to his chest as he sobs and collapses against him. If you keep acting so wretches, Charles, he assues, I really will leave you. In his pain, Charles reaches out for his new friend, Riku, but the other boy panics upon seeing the blood dripping from Charles' hands, and recoils. This wounds the former Chevalier so much, that the tentative trust in humans he allowed was so quickly "betrayed". After bitch slapping Van and telling him he'd punish him for ever mentioning Solomon's name again, Charles storms out, and though Riku tries to apologize to him, Van stops him, citing that what he was doing was only taking some perverse enjoyment out of torturing a monster.
Amshel's present, a prosthetic arm, soon gets put to good use. While fighting the Chiropterans Solomon releases Saya awakened in to her true self, and she heads directly to Charles's mansion. Charles takes Riku beneath the gardens and locks him up, rebuffing Riku's attempts at apologies by stating coldly that he was a perfect being, a Chiropteran, and Riku was only a bag of blood. It is in this state, wounded by Riku's words and incensed in anger, that Charles meets Saya for their recreation of their Vietnam War.
A brief, but bloody battle ensues. Hagi manages to catch Charles in the eye with a stiletto, but receives the same treatment in kind. Though she has awakened again, Charles prosthetic allows him a fair fighting ground, and he does rather well, that is, until he discovers that the present from Amshel isn't all it appears.
Kai, Saya's other adopted brother, slips underground as rescues Riku. As he was about to leave the cell and run, Riku finds the emperor moth from before, left in a tidy glass box by Charles for him. A sign of the brief care and trust they had shared. Upset by this, and wanting to express him, Riku runs above ground. Just in time for Amshel's present to start beeping, Charles to realize he had been betrayed once more by his fellow Chevaliers, and the prosthetic to detonate.
As the smoke clears it's clear that the explosion was a powerful one, as it shore off Charles' right leg, what remained of his right arm, and most of his right side to boot. He heals quickly, yes, but the damage was so extensive he was having trouble without a bloody meal. Cursing, he calls for Van, and this time, his caretaker appears.
Toting a gun.
Van reveals his true intentions all along, to conduct enough research, become close enough to understand, to find enough material, to finally come up with a way to kill an immortal. Charles seems stricken, but only briefly. He bows his head as Van raises his gun, and grits his teeth almost bitterly. You really are a perfect human being, aren't you? Except even this doesn't go according to plan, because Riku takes the bullet meant for Charles.
Van flees upon realizing Saya is coming, leaving Charles stricken over a dying Riku. He starts crying again, going from insulting him from being stupid enough to do that, to asking why he would. Riku tells Charles that he just wanted to tell him he was sorry, and he thought Charles needed his help. As he bleeds out Charles holds his hand, insisting he was cruel, because Charles never, ever, wanted to trust humans. It is this scene, as Riku grows silent, that Saya stumbles upon. In her rage at seeing her brother seemingly killed by her enemy, she grabs her sword, coated in her own blood, the only thing fatal to Diva's chevaliers, and charges.
Charles stands, but loses all the will to fight her. Stripped away from Diva, tortured by Amshel, played by Solomon, betrayed by Van, and then stricken by Riku's sacrifice, he just stands to take Saya's blade, smiling as she kills him, and wondering if this, the cold embrace of death, wasn't what he had been seeking in her all this time.
[character abilities]:
As a Chevalier, a Chiropteran made by receiving the blood of a Chiropteran Queen mouth to mouth, Charles is an immortal being, only able to be killed by Saya's, the other Chiropteran Queen's, blood. He does not age from the time he become a Chevalier, appearing to be approx. twelve or thirteen years old. Because of what he became he can keep a human form with no effort, unlike the lowlier Chiropterans who appear as grotesque monsters. However, he can take that shape as well, though he never does turn himself full beast, usually only transforming his remaining hand, enlarging it, armoring, and clawing. It is this, and the superhuman strength accompanying it, that is his primary weapon.
Another thing his state grants him is exceptional healing ability. He can reattach limbs as long as he presses them back where they belong, he can rip his own goddamn heart out and then have it shoved back in... you get the deal. If he sustains massive damage and loses too much blood, however, he heals slower, and needs someone else's blood to stimulate his healing again. Blood is his food, like a vampire, though it would be possible, just not likely for him due to his sadistic bent, to be able to receive this blood through IV.
[character personality]:
Charles' personality can be described as a big clusterfuck of issues. Big, big, issues.
Solomon says of him, rejected by monsters, guinea pig to humans, all Charles has is Saya, and in a sense, this is very true. Charles lives to kill Saya. A part of him thinks that if he can only kill her, revenge the loss of his arm, and his failure in Amshel's eyes, that things will be as they once were. He can be with Diva again, be a Chevalier again, and he does want this, as violently as he reacted to Solomon suggesting that was one of his motivations. Yet he cannot simply kill her, he refuses to take advantage of her unawakened state like that, stating that he won't get the full satisfaction of her defeat until she is as she was at that time when they fought initially. Charles has built himself up for fighting Saya.
She is his obsession, fully and completely, all of his efforts peaking in preparing his recreation of their Vietnam War. His "monster" side is most prevalent with her, sadistically wounding her again and again to try and force her to drink blood, offering Van her lower half to pleasure himself with once he finishes with her, and using her loved ones to hurt her all the more. His language completely changes around her, as well. He calls Hagi a cocksucker, chastises Saya for 'wetting her slutty crotch', and uses a lot of crude profanity. It's not likely Charles was this sadistic and cruel before, he was only a young boy with Diva turned him, (and turned him likely because she wanted a playmate, she is childish, and the rest of her Chevaliers are grown men), but his years have warped him.
Related to his obsessive nature, Charles is insanely dependent. He relies on Van for almost everything, for handling travel, arranging meals, contacts, anything. He commands, and Van obeys, but without Van, he's lost. His attachment to his one companion is just as obsessive as his need for Saya. Possessive, evidenced as he ripped his heart out at the idea, he can't stand the thought of anyone else having any control over Van. When someone is his, that is all they are, no one else's. Mind, body, soul, Van is his, in his mind, and yet he treats the other man poorly, slapping him if he disobeys, cracking his glasses, and forcing him in to difficult situations, all in seeming tests of loyalty, as Charles lives in a constant paranoia of being further betrayed by anyone.
The "human" part of Charles still remains, however. Most often seen when he is weakened by injury, but also other times, Charles can be something of a crybaby. This part of him didn't really ever grow up, stuck at the age Diva selected him, and not fully mature. Charles throws tantrums like a child, (a child with a lot of power and resources), when he doesn't get his way, cries helplessly for Van when in need, and is socially awkward around boys his own "age".
Riku is a good showcase of this more "human" personality. When confronted with someone who isn't afraid of him, who doesn't immediately label him a monster or something to be experimented with, he isn't sure how to act. Peoples' affections confuse him, and companionship easily flusters him and catches him off guard. He doesn't curse at all, really, and speaks softer, more insecure, trying to boss people around to hide his own hesistance. He can't fully believe and trust, however, and is hyper sensitive to anything that even hints at a possible betrayal, drawing back before he can be hurt by betrayals that Charles feels are inevitable in his life, (see: his acceptance of Van's betrayal towards the end).
All in all, insecure, paranoid, obsessive, manic, dependent, sadistic, and a little bit of weakness are some good, short, descriptions.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]:
During his final showdown with Saya, his recreation of his Vietnam war, when the explosion blows off his prosthetic arm and one of his legs, just before Van appears to kill him.
[journal post]:
[The sound of hissing, presumably in pain]
It's healing too slow, I need-
VAN! VAN!
[a long silence, before there are sounds of heavy sloshing, blood falling to the ground, and shuffling, halting, movement]
This isn't... this isn't fair! I'm not done!
SAYA!
THIS ISN'T OVER YET! OUR VIETNAM WAR ISN'T OVER YET!
[dissolves in to sobs, weak noises of blood gurgling.]
Damn it...
[third person / log sample]:
One more betrayal in a long, long, line.
A part of him wonders if he shouldn't have expected it. If he hadn't. The gift... he spat that word, gift, from Amshel hadn't been a gift at all, so much as an instrument of his demise. Did they want to be rid of him so badly, those Chevaliers? Hah. That proved he was still a threat at least. ... Right?
The sick noise of blood and flesh plopping to the ground was the first thing to reach his ears after the deafening road of the prosthetic arm's built in gift, an explosion that had echoed for miles in to the Vietnam jungles all around, ripped blue petals from the roses all around them, and left him lying here on the ground with the sick plop-plopping. The pain hit him next, made him whine and hiss, but this pain, here and now, was nothing compared to the pain of thirty years ago.
No, that pain was inflicted by her, by Saya, the Chevaliers' beautiful, blood-soaked, bride. Their Diva's twin, and the one who wanted them all dead, dead, dead. Her pain had been more intense, because that had been her blood, slicing off his arm and her essence racing up his veins to end him, stopped only when he himself reached and ripped off the rest to prevent her, his only fatal contraption, from reaching his heart. That was the pain that drove him, eclipsed this pain here and now, accompanied with the pain of just one more betrayal, one more trust betrayed, and one more shame revealed.
His voice rose, calling out for Van, needing him in that moment and seeing only smoke dissipating around him. But calling for Van took him to calling for someone else, but he didn't, too proud, too wounded by the other boy to dare, closing his throat before a sound could escape, the need for blood pumping in his breast as every heartbeat let more of his own escape from the bloody mess of his right side. The stump of his right arm, gone with the prosthetic, his right leg, too, and the rest. But even the duller pain of here and now didn't distract him from the line of thought, racing down the old, too worn paths of his memory.
Saya, blood thirsty in Vietnam thirty years past, trying to kill Diva, his beautiful Queen Diva, who loved him, had loved him, played with him, before thirty years ago. Then the others, Amshel, casting him out, and leaving him with Van, his comfort and the source of his torment, for years and years made in to man's guinea pig, to make pills and methods, weapons and ways, to perfect the Chiropteran race and devise a way to kill a being that cannot die. All of those memories took up the near hundred years of his life, and yet all of those could be set back to the ones of yesterday. A moth fluttering about in his study, a boy smiling and tying his ribbon, to Herman Hesse's Das Nachtpfauenauge, Judendgedenken, and then to crying, crying, acting so damned wretched.
One more betrayal in a long, long line.
Part of him, the part of him struggling to recover and fight once more, longed to know if Diva had been party to his rejection. Part of him didn't want to know, because it would make the wound more real. Amshel and Solomon, all the others, they betrayed him, too, one little mistake and they cast him out. Riku betrayed him, lied and said he wasn't afraid, well- He knew what he really thought of him now. Monster. Who was next, Van? No, no, no, he couldn't, he couldn't! At least Saya, Charles coughed up crimson blood, had never betrayed him. She, faithful, bloodthirsty Saya, would always be there, trying to finish the job she'd left undone thirty years ago.
One more betrayal left, Charles vowed. One more was all there was, because there was only one more person in the world left to him, there was only Van, now. One more, and he would be glad to see it end, glad to leave this life, rejected by his fellow monsters, feared by humanity, and loved by no one. All of his trust, all of his life, in one moment laid bare for him as he cried out for Van, for blood, and for Saya.
Charles didn't yet know that his one more was coming with a gun.
Or that the one who hadn't truly betrayed him was staring at a moth pinned carefully in a glass box, tenderly, regretfully, and feeling compassion well in his human heart.
LJ name: raigekijin
Other characters played:
[Cirucci :: Bleach :: thunderwitch]
[Nemu :: Bleach :: sciencedaughter]
[Sui :: Double Arts :: cherryhoops]
[Ophelia :: Claymore :: therippling]
[Guilford :: Code Geass:: glastonknight]
[Havoc :: Darker than Black :: letslip]
[Tianzi :: Code Geass:: justasystem]
[e-mail]: DeiDei.Kun@gmail.com
[AIM / messenger]: steelandpride
[series]: Blood+
[character]: Charles Fei-Ong*
* Carl in the Blood+ manga and Carl in the anime are seperate characters, yes, but they do seem to be each others parallel. They share similar personality traits, motivations, and connections, as well as name, etc, so I'm going on assuming that Fei-Ong may very well be manga!Carl' last name as well, since the characters are essentially each other, just... different in each media, if that makes sense. Anime Carl info is here
[character history / background]:
Once upon a time, in 1917, there was a young boy, and this young boy was introduced to a young woman who wasn’t quite human. Diva, one of two Chiropteran Queen, and the one raised in her “natural” environment, unstable and violent. But Carl was only around twelve years old, and he could play with her, the more innocent kind of play, and so she had him drink of her blood through the mouth, and by doing so, turned him in to one of the Chevaliers. The band of brothers, fellow Chevaliers, over the years began to subsist of the eldest of them, Amshel, Carl himself, Solomon, Nathan, Grigori, James, and Martin. Of all of her Chevaliers, the men she has chosen as her special guard, those who are compelled to protect her at all costs, watch over her as she sleeps, she says that only Amshel and Carl were turned of her own want. The rest, she dismisses at one point, were only turned because Amshel insisted on it, not because of her own desires, which speaks of her regard for the lives she creates. Of her chevaliers, Martin is no longer living, and Grigori is not featured.
In 1972, during the Vietnam war, Carl was with Diva in a danger zone. The Vietnam war was a period of vast unrest for the Chiropteran race, with both Queens, Diva and Saya, eventually awake, and the ability to cloak their bloody activities in the carnage of wartime. In order to combat the army of Chiropterans that Diva had raised, the Red Shield organization, dedicated to Diva’s destruction, tried to force Saya’s awakening, as the queens spend thirty years asleep and one awake, and with her sleeping, they had no real chance against the Chiropterans. By forcefully injecting her Chevalier, Hagi’s, blood in to her, they did manage to awaken her, but she was blood crazed and not herself, going off on a bloody rampage, killing Chiropteran and innocent humans alike. Seeking out Diva, Carl protected his queen, and in the process of fighting the maddened Saya he lost his arm. While as a Chevalier he would normally have been able to reattach a limb, Saya’s blood is deadly to those of Diva’s blood, and he had to rip his limb from him before the infection spread and killed him.
Carl’s failure, his endangering of their Queen, and his loss to Saya earned him Amshel’s disdain. One of the goals of the Chevaliers included perfecting a way to artificially manufacture Chiropteran beasts, and in order to further this goal Amshel punished Carl by casting him out of the Chevalier ranks, going even so far as to remove his name from him, dictating that he would from now on only be known as Charles, and that he would be subject to all the experiments that their Cinq Flèches group needed to perform on an immortal Chevalier to perfect their D67 medicines that could turn normal humans in to Chiropterans.
And thus was Carl dead, and Charles born.
Over the years after that Charles’ life was one large experiment. Van Argiano, the top researcher at the Cinq Flèches pharmaceutical group, was made his caretaker, confidante, and only contact. Van fed Charles, accompanied him everywhere, bent to his every whim, and yet, was also the one who was performing the cruel, often painful, tests upon the former Chevalier. Because Charles could not die, experiments to see what may force him to approach true death were the norm. And yet, over the thirty some years after the Vietnam War, Charles grew as attached to his handler as his handler pretended to attach to him. Van was essentially his only companion throughout the years approaching the start of the main storyline of Blood+.
We first see Charles entering canon in the pursuit of two rogue Chiropterans from the D67 project. The American military stationed in Okinawa is initially supposed to control their capture, but when Saya, amnesiac and unaware of her past, becomes involved? Charles gets involved fast, mobilizing the US forces and offering Van Saya's lower half when he's done with her, since she's immortal, he assures him, it should still be serviceable. For Charles, everything has to be perfect, to recreate "his" Vietnam War in which Saya took his arm from him, and therefore everything he held dear: Diva, and the companionship of her other Chevaliers, not to mention freedom and life without constant torture thinly veiled as research. In the middle of a school play Charles makes his debut after she dispatches a Chiropteran, raining a vast amount of wounds on Saya in the need to make her awaken, to drink blood, and to become the Saya he fought thirty years past. He gets too carried away, however, and is taken off guard by Hagi, Saya's Chevalier, and they manage to escape him. But to set up for his next act he kidnaps Saya's little brother, fourteen year old Riku, and leaves Red Shields' doctor lying in a bed of blue roses, with his note to the still unawakened Saya carved on to her breasts.
Just as he wished, Saya and the Red Shield group follow him back to Vietnam, with only his blue roses, (Diva's favorite), as a clue. Charles would have stayed in a good mood, perhaps, if Solomon, one of Diva's other Chevaliers, had not paid a visit on Amshel's orders. For acting out of turn, and attacking Saya, playing his games, Solomon was instructed to "reign him in a little". He seems to pity Charles, at least, he acts as if he does, which only causes the former Chevalier to cut Solomon's hand from him when he accuses Charles of really doing all of this in the hopes of becoming a Chevalier again. For his insubordination, and to reign him in as instructed, Solomon cuts of Charles' remaining arm, and both of his legs, refusing to release him until he imparts his "advice".
Your Ophelia act is too good, Charles. I'm worried about you. I don't want you to end up drowned in a brook."
How kind, Laertes. But the blood loss of this encounter is what sets him up for a display of weakness when Riku wakes up. Charles cannot move from his seat, and was cursing God, cursing Solomon, when Riku opens his eyes to find him crying. Embarrassed to show weakness like this he tries to flee, but falls, and instead starts crying out for Van. But Van doesn't come. Still crying, Charles answers Riku's queries about whether he is okay by turning and asking him to save him, moving to drink his blood and restore his own strength.
When Riku wakes once again, he doesn't believe that Charles' hand, which he turned to Chiropteran form, was real. A naive boy, really, Riku is nothing like Charles, or like what Charles expected. He bosses Riku around, declaring him his servant until Saya arrives. Having never had another companion besides Van, Charles falls back on a side of himself that had not seen the light of day for many years. He grows remarkably close to Riku in their short time together. He admits his fear of moths to the other boy, (dirty insects disguised as butterflies!), reveals a passion for fine literature, and is shocked when Riku helps him tie the ribbon at his neck, something he is unable to do with only one arm. When he asks, "You aren't afraid of me?", "Of course not", is his answer.
Things come to a head, however, when Solomon gives Van a present from Amshel to Charles, and instructs him to use Diva's song to mobilize the D67 infected humans in the area, turning them to Chiropterans in order to fight Saya and the Red Shield group. During this talk Solomon asks Van why he wears glasses cracked by one of Charles' fits. He is almost moved when Van says that, while he has another pair of glasses, he makes sure always to wear the ones that Charles cracked around Charles, presumably in order to fill him with guilt, and remind him. When confronted by Charles about following Solomon's orders, Van only starts to say that it was Solomon before Charles becomes increasingly unstable and manic, shouting that Van doesn't listen to the Chevaliers, he listens to him, and he wouldn't let them have him, never, never, never. In a fear of the most twisted desperation and devotion, the immortal rips his own heart from his chest and presents it to Van, stating that he knows what he's after, eternal life secrets, and his blood had them, his, not theirs, and he would give them to him, give Van anything.
Just don't betray me.
Issues much. While Riku goes in to a state of shock, Van calmly removes Charles' heart from his hand and presses it back in to his chest as he sobs and collapses against him. If you keep acting so wretches, Charles, he assues, I really will leave you. In his pain, Charles reaches out for his new friend, Riku, but the other boy panics upon seeing the blood dripping from Charles' hands, and recoils. This wounds the former Chevalier so much, that the tentative trust in humans he allowed was so quickly "betrayed". After bitch slapping Van and telling him he'd punish him for ever mentioning Solomon's name again, Charles storms out, and though Riku tries to apologize to him, Van stops him, citing that what he was doing was only taking some perverse enjoyment out of torturing a monster.
Amshel's present, a prosthetic arm, soon gets put to good use. While fighting the Chiropterans Solomon releases Saya awakened in to her true self, and she heads directly to Charles's mansion. Charles takes Riku beneath the gardens and locks him up, rebuffing Riku's attempts at apologies by stating coldly that he was a perfect being, a Chiropteran, and Riku was only a bag of blood. It is in this state, wounded by Riku's words and incensed in anger, that Charles meets Saya for their recreation of their Vietnam War.
A brief, but bloody battle ensues. Hagi manages to catch Charles in the eye with a stiletto, but receives the same treatment in kind. Though she has awakened again, Charles prosthetic allows him a fair fighting ground, and he does rather well, that is, until he discovers that the present from Amshel isn't all it appears.
Kai, Saya's other adopted brother, slips underground as rescues Riku. As he was about to leave the cell and run, Riku finds the emperor moth from before, left in a tidy glass box by Charles for him. A sign of the brief care and trust they had shared. Upset by this, and wanting to express him, Riku runs above ground. Just in time for Amshel's present to start beeping, Charles to realize he had been betrayed once more by his fellow Chevaliers, and the prosthetic to detonate.
As the smoke clears it's clear that the explosion was a powerful one, as it shore off Charles' right leg, what remained of his right arm, and most of his right side to boot. He heals quickly, yes, but the damage was so extensive he was having trouble without a bloody meal. Cursing, he calls for Van, and this time, his caretaker appears.
Toting a gun.
Van reveals his true intentions all along, to conduct enough research, become close enough to understand, to find enough material, to finally come up with a way to kill an immortal. Charles seems stricken, but only briefly. He bows his head as Van raises his gun, and grits his teeth almost bitterly. You really are a perfect human being, aren't you? Except even this doesn't go according to plan, because Riku takes the bullet meant for Charles.
Van flees upon realizing Saya is coming, leaving Charles stricken over a dying Riku. He starts crying again, going from insulting him from being stupid enough to do that, to asking why he would. Riku tells Charles that he just wanted to tell him he was sorry, and he thought Charles needed his help. As he bleeds out Charles holds his hand, insisting he was cruel, because Charles never, ever, wanted to trust humans. It is this scene, as Riku grows silent, that Saya stumbles upon. In her rage at seeing her brother seemingly killed by her enemy, she grabs her sword, coated in her own blood, the only thing fatal to Diva's chevaliers, and charges.
Charles stands, but loses all the will to fight her. Stripped away from Diva, tortured by Amshel, played by Solomon, betrayed by Van, and then stricken by Riku's sacrifice, he just stands to take Saya's blade, smiling as she kills him, and wondering if this, the cold embrace of death, wasn't what he had been seeking in her all this time.
[character abilities]:
As a Chevalier, a Chiropteran made by receiving the blood of a Chiropteran Queen mouth to mouth, Charles is an immortal being, only able to be killed by Saya's, the other Chiropteran Queen's, blood. He does not age from the time he become a Chevalier, appearing to be approx. twelve or thirteen years old. Because of what he became he can keep a human form with no effort, unlike the lowlier Chiropterans who appear as grotesque monsters. However, he can take that shape as well, though he never does turn himself full beast, usually only transforming his remaining hand, enlarging it, armoring, and clawing. It is this, and the superhuman strength accompanying it, that is his primary weapon.
Another thing his state grants him is exceptional healing ability. He can reattach limbs as long as he presses them back where they belong, he can rip his own goddamn heart out and then have it shoved back in... you get the deal. If he sustains massive damage and loses too much blood, however, he heals slower, and needs someone else's blood to stimulate his healing again. Blood is his food, like a vampire, though it would be possible, just not likely for him due to his sadistic bent, to be able to receive this blood through IV.
[character personality]:
Charles' personality can be described as a big clusterfuck of issues. Big, big, issues.
Solomon says of him, rejected by monsters, guinea pig to humans, all Charles has is Saya, and in a sense, this is very true. Charles lives to kill Saya. A part of him thinks that if he can only kill her, revenge the loss of his arm, and his failure in Amshel's eyes, that things will be as they once were. He can be with Diva again, be a Chevalier again, and he does want this, as violently as he reacted to Solomon suggesting that was one of his motivations. Yet he cannot simply kill her, he refuses to take advantage of her unawakened state like that, stating that he won't get the full satisfaction of her defeat until she is as she was at that time when they fought initially. Charles has built himself up for fighting Saya.
She is his obsession, fully and completely, all of his efforts peaking in preparing his recreation of their Vietnam War. His "monster" side is most prevalent with her, sadistically wounding her again and again to try and force her to drink blood, offering Van her lower half to pleasure himself with once he finishes with her, and using her loved ones to hurt her all the more. His language completely changes around her, as well. He calls Hagi a cocksucker, chastises Saya for 'wetting her slutty crotch', and uses a lot of crude profanity. It's not likely Charles was this sadistic and cruel before, he was only a young boy with Diva turned him, (and turned him likely because she wanted a playmate, she is childish, and the rest of her Chevaliers are grown men), but his years have warped him.
Related to his obsessive nature, Charles is insanely dependent. He relies on Van for almost everything, for handling travel, arranging meals, contacts, anything. He commands, and Van obeys, but without Van, he's lost. His attachment to his one companion is just as obsessive as his need for Saya. Possessive, evidenced as he ripped his heart out at the idea, he can't stand the thought of anyone else having any control over Van. When someone is his, that is all they are, no one else's. Mind, body, soul, Van is his, in his mind, and yet he treats the other man poorly, slapping him if he disobeys, cracking his glasses, and forcing him in to difficult situations, all in seeming tests of loyalty, as Charles lives in a constant paranoia of being further betrayed by anyone.
The "human" part of Charles still remains, however. Most often seen when he is weakened by injury, but also other times, Charles can be something of a crybaby. This part of him didn't really ever grow up, stuck at the age Diva selected him, and not fully mature. Charles throws tantrums like a child, (a child with a lot of power and resources), when he doesn't get his way, cries helplessly for Van when in need, and is socially awkward around boys his own "age".
Riku is a good showcase of this more "human" personality. When confronted with someone who isn't afraid of him, who doesn't immediately label him a monster or something to be experimented with, he isn't sure how to act. Peoples' affections confuse him, and companionship easily flusters him and catches him off guard. He doesn't curse at all, really, and speaks softer, more insecure, trying to boss people around to hide his own hesistance. He can't fully believe and trust, however, and is hyper sensitive to anything that even hints at a possible betrayal, drawing back before he can be hurt by betrayals that Charles feels are inevitable in his life, (see: his acceptance of Van's betrayal towards the end).
All in all, insecure, paranoid, obsessive, manic, dependent, sadistic, and a little bit of weakness are some good, short, descriptions.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]:
During his final showdown with Saya, his recreation of his Vietnam war, when the explosion blows off his prosthetic arm and one of his legs, just before Van appears to kill him.
[journal post]:
[The sound of hissing, presumably in pain]
It's healing too slow, I need-
VAN! VAN!
[a long silence, before there are sounds of heavy sloshing, blood falling to the ground, and shuffling, halting, movement]
This isn't... this isn't fair! I'm not done!
SAYA!
THIS ISN'T OVER YET! OUR VIETNAM WAR ISN'T OVER YET!
[dissolves in to sobs, weak noises of blood gurgling.]
Damn it...
[third person / log sample]:
One more betrayal in a long, long, line.
A part of him wonders if he shouldn't have expected it. If he hadn't. The gift... he spat that word, gift, from Amshel hadn't been a gift at all, so much as an instrument of his demise. Did they want to be rid of him so badly, those Chevaliers? Hah. That proved he was still a threat at least. ... Right?
The sick noise of blood and flesh plopping to the ground was the first thing to reach his ears after the deafening road of the prosthetic arm's built in gift, an explosion that had echoed for miles in to the Vietnam jungles all around, ripped blue petals from the roses all around them, and left him lying here on the ground with the sick plop-plopping. The pain hit him next, made him whine and hiss, but this pain, here and now, was nothing compared to the pain of thirty years ago.
No, that pain was inflicted by her, by Saya, the Chevaliers' beautiful, blood-soaked, bride. Their Diva's twin, and the one who wanted them all dead, dead, dead. Her pain had been more intense, because that had been her blood, slicing off his arm and her essence racing up his veins to end him, stopped only when he himself reached and ripped off the rest to prevent her, his only fatal contraption, from reaching his heart. That was the pain that drove him, eclipsed this pain here and now, accompanied with the pain of just one more betrayal, one more trust betrayed, and one more shame revealed.
His voice rose, calling out for Van, needing him in that moment and seeing only smoke dissipating around him. But calling for Van took him to calling for someone else, but he didn't, too proud, too wounded by the other boy to dare, closing his throat before a sound could escape, the need for blood pumping in his breast as every heartbeat let more of his own escape from the bloody mess of his right side. The stump of his right arm, gone with the prosthetic, his right leg, too, and the rest. But even the duller pain of here and now didn't distract him from the line of thought, racing down the old, too worn paths of his memory.
Saya, blood thirsty in Vietnam thirty years past, trying to kill Diva, his beautiful Queen Diva, who loved him, had loved him, played with him, before thirty years ago. Then the others, Amshel, casting him out, and leaving him with Van, his comfort and the source of his torment, for years and years made in to man's guinea pig, to make pills and methods, weapons and ways, to perfect the Chiropteran race and devise a way to kill a being that cannot die. All of those memories took up the near hundred years of his life, and yet all of those could be set back to the ones of yesterday. A moth fluttering about in his study, a boy smiling and tying his ribbon, to Herman Hesse's Das Nachtpfauenauge, Judendgedenken, and then to crying, crying, acting so damned wretched.
One more betrayal in a long, long line.
Part of him, the part of him struggling to recover and fight once more, longed to know if Diva had been party to his rejection. Part of him didn't want to know, because it would make the wound more real. Amshel and Solomon, all the others, they betrayed him, too, one little mistake and they cast him out. Riku betrayed him, lied and said he wasn't afraid, well- He knew what he really thought of him now. Monster. Who was next, Van? No, no, no, he couldn't, he couldn't! At least Saya, Charles coughed up crimson blood, had never betrayed him. She, faithful, bloodthirsty Saya, would always be there, trying to finish the job she'd left undone thirty years ago.
One more betrayal left, Charles vowed. One more was all there was, because there was only one more person in the world left to him, there was only Van, now. One more, and he would be glad to see it end, glad to leave this life, rejected by his fellow monsters, feared by humanity, and loved by no one. All of his trust, all of his life, in one moment laid bare for him as he cried out for Van, for blood, and for Saya.
Charles didn't yet know that his one more was coming with a gun.
Or that the one who hadn't truly betrayed him was staring at a moth pinned carefully in a glass box, tenderly, regretfully, and feeling compassion well in his human heart.